Octavia (4 page)

Quite right, Octavia thought. He’s got a lot of sense for a little ’un. But the holiday was over and they would all be having tea together on Sunday, the way they usually did, so perhaps…

It was the oddest tea party. Emmeline was now a most superior young lady, wearing a pink tea gown and a knowing expression. She’d joined her father’s tennis club in Brookfield, had been to so many plays and concerts she couldn’t
remember them all, had acquired an artless laugh and a new trick of patting her mounded hair, and was going to have what she called ‘a proper party’ at Christmas for all her new friends. ‘You must come too, Tavy. You’ll
adore
them.’ And Cyril had come back from his holiday with hair as long as Oscar Wilde and the dark shadow of an incipient moustache on his upper lip, boasting that he’d been speaking French like billy-oh and dropping French phrases into the conversation all the time to prove it. Octavia wanted to laugh at him but she knew it would upset everybody if she did, for his parents were gazing at him in admiration and even Emmeline seemed wary of him.

‘I suppose you’ll soon be going back to school,’ Aunt Maud said as they kissed goodbye. ‘I wish you luck.’

‘Thank you,’ Octavia said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Which was true. At school she knew where she was and what was expected of her. At school there were friends to confide in.

‘I just don’t understand my cousin,’ she said to Betty Transom on their first day back. ‘All she ever talks about is what she’s going to wear. And what a lot of young men she’s meeting. It’s really boring.’

‘Carlotta was just the same,’ Betty said, polishing her glasses. ‘Do you remember her? Long fair hair. Good at games. Sang in the choir. And then the minute she left it was all hats and gloves and “you’ll never believe who I saw at the tennis club!’’ And putting on airs as if she’d never learnt anything in her life.’

‘I hope I never get like that,’ Octavia said. ‘I think it’s horrid.’

‘You’ll have to if you want to get married,’ Betty said sagely. ‘That’s how they all go on then.’

‘If that’s the case, it’s just as well I don’t want to get married,’ Octavia said.

‘Don’t you?’

‘No,’ Octavia said firmly. ‘I don’t. Not for ages and ages anyway.’

‘What do you want to do then?’

Octavia had no doubt about that. ‘I want to go to college,’ she said, ‘and get a degree and be a graduate like Mrs Bryant. And after that I want to find a cause, so that I can do something worthwhile. Something that will make a difference.’

‘What sort of something?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Octavia admitted. ‘I shall find out though. When I’ve got my degree probably.’

‘You’ll have to work ever so hard if you want to go to college,’ Betty warned, putting on her glasses. ‘You have to matriculate in Cambridge Junior for a start and then you have to stay on in the sixth form and do the senior exam and get a scholarship. It takes ages and ages. Pa told me.’

The earnestness on her friend’s face revealed a fellow ambition. ‘Is that what you want to do too?’

‘I’d like to,’ Betty admitted. ‘The trouble is I don’t think I’d be clever enough.’

‘Of course you would,’ Octavia said. ‘Passing exams is just a matter of how hard you work. That’s all. I’m going to pass mine with credits and distinctions. And so will you. I tell you what, we’ll study together and compare notes. Two heads are better than one.’

‘Will they let us?’ Betty wondered. ‘I mean, are we supposed to?’

‘I ask my father when I’m not sure about things,’ Octavia
told her, ‘so I can’t see why you shouldn’t ask me. Let’s try it and see what happens. It’s two years before the exams. We could learn an awful lot between us in two years.’

Betty was touched by the offer. ‘You’re my very best friend,’ she said, her brown eyes moist with tears. ‘My very, very best.’ She was trying to think of something she could offer in return, something equally worthwhile and important, but her mind was stuck in gratitude. ‘If I can ever help
you
with anything,’ she urged, ‘you must tell me straight away. You promise?’

The promise was given with an easy kiss and their cooperation started that very evening with a difficult mathematical problem. It seemed intractable until Professor Smith enlightened them both in the quiet of his study and then it was perfectly simple.

‘Fancy that!’ Betty said, much impressed.

‘What did I tell you?’ Octavia said. ‘It’s just a matter of seeing straight. That’s all.’

After such a rewarding start, their lives rapidly acquired a pattern and the pattern didn’t vary for the next three years. They did their homework together in Betty’s house in Highgate every Tuesday evening and in Octavia’s every Thursday and Friday and consulted Professor Smith whenever they had need of his mathematical clarity, and the longer they studied together the stronger their confidence became. Octavia still saw her cousins every week when the two families took tea but she and Emmeline had grown so far apart that they no longer had anything in common and Cyril got sillier and sillier with every passing week, showing off about his marvellous bicycle and his marvellous examination results and his marvellous friend Meriton Major. It was a relief to get back to school and talk to Betty Transom. By the
time their mock examinations began, in the spring term of their fifth year, they had grown into the sort of bosom friends who could tell one another almost anything and they were both so well prepared, especially in Mathematics, that Betty declared she was hardly nervous at all.

Which was obvious from their results, for both did well enough to stay on in the sixth form and to start studying for the Cambridge Senior Examination. The first year of their new studies passed easily enough and it seemed no time at all before they were sitting their second set of mock examinations.

‘I feel as if I’ve been studying for ever and ever,’ Betty sighed, late one January evening before their first English paper. Outside her bedroom it was dark and cold and she was feeling the strain of so much application.

‘Once this is over and we’ve got our results, we’ll go out and celebrate,’ Octavia promised. ‘I’ll get Papa to look and see if there’s anything nice on at the theatre or the music hall.’

But in the event it wasn’t a theatre they went to visit. It was a hall in Central London.

On the morning after their mock results had been handed out – and most of them as good as they’d hoped – Betty came running into the form room waving a printed handbill. She was flushed with excitement. ‘Look at this, Tavy!’ she said, holding out the little paper. ‘I’ve found our cause.’

Octavia caught her excitement. ‘What is it?’

‘Votes for women,’ Betty told her. ‘It’s what Mrs Bryant was telling us about at prayers last week. You remember. Women’s suffrage. She called it the greatest cause of our time and I think it is. You just read it. Gwen got it last night when she was coming out of the telephone exchange. There was a lady
there with a pile of them.’ She spread the leaflet out on Octavia’s desk. ‘Read it. It’s all about a meeting they’re going to have right here in London and how they’re going to make the government change the law so that women can vote the same as men and what a scandal it is that women are ignored. All sorts of things. Gwen says she’s a good mind to go and I’ve a good mind too. What d’you think? Shall we?’

Octavia was reading the leaflet, scanning the close-printed lines, her heart throbbing with excitement. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking up. ‘Let’s. It sounds wonderful. We can’t miss it.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘I’ll have to ask Papa, of course.’

‘Ask him tonight,’ Betty urged. ‘He’ll let you, won’t he? He’s into all sorts of things like that, isn’t he? I mean, the Fabians and everything.’

So Octavia asked him.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said, beaming at her, ‘so my little bird is going to stretch her political wings.’

‘Yes, Papa. If that’s all right.’

‘It will be an education,’ he said and beamed at her. ‘Wear warm clothes and try not to get arrested, that’s all.’

Mama was looking worried, biting her lower lip, her forehead wrinkled. ‘Don’t say such things, J-J,’ she reproved him. ‘Even in jest. There’s many a true word spoken in jest.’

Why is she scolding him? Octavia wondered. Meetings aren’t dangerous, are they? It was only a joke. He’s always making jokes. They don’t arrest you for going to meetings.

‘You’ve worried her, my love,’ J-J said, patting his wife’s hand. ‘No, no. You go, Tavy. Go, look, mark, learn and inwardly digest. And then come home and tell us all about it. I think you will enjoy it.’

‘We’re barely into March,’ Mama objected. ‘Wouldn’t it be
better to wait for warmer weather? March and April can be such difficult months. Think how they were last year. I wouldn’t want you taking cold.’

‘I’ll wrap up really warm,’ Octavia promised. ‘Muff and everything.’

Her father spoke up for her in the same breath, ‘She’ll be fine, my love.’

‘It’s all very worrying,’ Mama said, biting her lip again. ‘She’s too young for this sort of thing.’

‘I shall be with Gwendoline, Mama,’ Octavia pointed out. ‘She’s nineteen. She’s been out at work for nearly three years.’

‘That’s as may be,’ her mother said. ‘But you are only sixteen.’

Octavia bristled. ‘I shall be seventeen in August.’

‘That is still too young,’ Amy said firmly, and she turned to scold her husband again. ‘It’s all very well for you to be light-hearted, J-J, but there are women in this movement who go out on the streets to demonstrate. I was reading about it only the other day. Do we really want her mixing with that sort?’

‘From what I’ve read of the Pankhurst ladies,’ J-J said, ‘they are altogether reasonable and proper. Bernard Shaw speaks highly of them. However, since you are concerned – and yes, yes I can see how concerned you are, my love – I will don my chaperone’s hat for the evening and pack my duelling pistols or wear my broadsword, whichever you wish, and we will wrap our young firebrand in cotton wool and I will accompany all three of them to and from their appointment. Would that reassure you?’

‘It would,’ Amy said, smiling at the thought of her gentle J-J carrying any sort of weapon, let alone a broadsword, and
thinking what a dear, sensitive, ridiculous man he was. ‘If you are with them, my love, I shan’t worry at all.’

So that Saturday, the three girls put on their best hats and their buttoned boots, hung their muffs about their necks and, with Professor Smith to squire them, took a tram to Westminster to attend their first political meeting.

The hall was full of flamboyant hats – bold, curvaceous, positive hats – nodding in the gallery, busy above the wooden seats in the body of the hall, embellished by swoops and swirls of extravagant trimming. There were sunflower hats, tilting their petalled faces to the light from the high windows; birds’ nest hats, shimmering with feathers; fur hats, crouched over their owners’ foreheads as though they were about to spring upon the nearest prey. Whatever else the politicians and leader writers might say about them, and they usually had plenty to say and most of it detrimental, the ladies of the Women’s Social and Political Union dressed in formidable style.

There were very few men in the audience but that didn’t worry Professor Smith, for this was just the sort of revolutionary assembly in which he felt most at home. He tucked Octavia’s gloved hand into the crook of his left elbow and escorted his three charges to the nearest row of empty seats, smiling to right and left as he progressed.

Octavia was too overawed to smile. She settled beside him quietly, looking at the grand clothes of the platform party and
the huge banner that hung above their heads declaring ‘D
EEDS
N
OT
W
ORDS
’ in bold green letters. It made her remember how she’d felt years and years ago, when she was six, half-hidden in the shadows of her father’s study, watching the great and the good as they arrived for dinner, knowing how small and young she was and yet feeling hopeful and uplifted and breathlessly excited to be so near to the people who were going to change the world. And now here she was,
half-hidden
among all these strong, determined women, in this grand high-ceilinged hall, feeling almost exactly the same – only not quite so small. And as she looked around her, she suddenly remembered what hard work it had been to clean the tea stains from the carpet and recalled, in sharp
still-shaming
detail, the little pale brown splashes on Mr Morris’s famous wallpaper. How odd, she thought. Memory is very peculiar.

The platform party were discussing something, looking round the half-empty hall and conversing urgently, their fine hats dipping towards one another, like great birds in flight.

‘Time to start, I think,’ Professor Smith observed.

‘There aren’t many people here,’ Betty whispered.

‘It’s not the quantity that counts on occasions like this,’ he told her, ‘it’s the quality.’

Which was more or less what the chairman said when she made her opening remarks, thanking her audience for attending and expressing the hope that the speech they were about to hear would make them feel that their journeys had been worthwhile. ‘We have a great task in hand,’ she said, ‘and every person who supports our noble cause is valued and valuable. I welcome you most warmly, one and all.’ Then she introduced the speaker, ‘somebody who is so well known to
us that she hardly needs any introduction at all. Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst.’

The applause and the expectation were intense, for this was the lady who had founded the WSPU and was the driving force behind all its activities. She stood, elegant in her grey suit with the thick white frill of her blouse framing her chin, smiled, waited until her audience had settled and began, speaking in a voice so soft and gentle that they had to strain forward to hear her.

Octavia listened with all her attention, determined not to miss a word, for what was being said was right and true and needed saying. The world was neither just nor fair – she had always known that – and something had to be done about it – she knew that too – and now here was a lady who knew exactly what it had to be. Before long she was nodding in agreement as each new point was made. If a woman does the same work as a man she should receive the same rate of pay. Of course. If she has studied law at university and earned a degree she should be allowed to practice alongside her gentlemen colleagues. Quite right. If her husband deserts her she should be allowed to petition for divorce, in exactly the same way as he could were the position reversed, despite the recent ruling in the High Court. Of course, of course. It was all so reasonable, so correct, so utterly sensible. She felt as if she was flying, up and up, lifted on stronger and stronger wings with every stated truth. Yes, yes, of course.

‘However,’ Mrs Pankhurst went on seriously, ‘it must be said, here and now, and over and over again, that legal, economic and educational inequalities will not be redressed until women have the right to make their will known through the ballot box. Without the vote women will continue to be
second-class citizens. Without the vote we are without a voice. Without the vote we have no rights and no power. It must also be said that, in this country, the right to vote has never been given willingly and never without a struggle. During the last century, men were gradually granted the suffrage for which they fought but only by grudging degrees. The Chartists began their campaign in the 1830s, as you will remember, but it wasn’t until the third Reform Act in 1884 that they were finally taken seriously and even now, although five million men are enfranchised, this is by no means the universal suffrage the original Chartists sought. All these new voters together only make up two-thirds of the adult male population. We have a long and difficult struggle ahead of us, but it is a noble struggle. Our cause is just, ladies and gentlemen, and in the end we will prevail.’

The applause was immediate and prolonged although a little muffled because so many hands were politely gloved. Octavia took her gloves off for better effect and clapped until her palms were sore and by then the audience was on its feet and cheering and Mrs Pankhurst was acknowledging a standing ovation. ‘Hurray!’ Octavia called. ‘Hurray! Hurray!’ Dust motes swirled in the air before her, like specks of gold in the gaslight, the applause rose and fell in reverberating waves of sound, the banner throbbed in the current of their approbation as if it covered a beating heart. ‘Hurray!’

‘I must join,’ she said to her father, as the cheering subsided.

He was putting on his own gloves. ‘I thought you might.’

‘Now,’ she said passionately. ‘This minute. I want to shake her hand and tell her how wonderful she is.’

‘So do I,’ Betty and Gwen said together and amended it, half-laughing, to, ‘So do we.’

‘Then you will all need a shilling,’ he said, smiling at them.

‘Shall we?’ Octavia said.

‘Indeed yes,’ her father said, as he took the coins from his pocket. ‘That is the price of commitment.’

Oh, what bliss it was to stand in such a splendid line with so many strong-minded determined women and to know that she and her friends would soon be part of this extraordinary union. What a thrill to touch the gloved fingers of her new heroine and to hear herself welcomed – by name, what’s more. ‘You have joined a great crusade, Miss Smith.’

She was still glowing with the wonder of it all as she climbed aboard the tram for her journey home. ‘Didn’t I always say I’d find a cause?’ she asked her friends, rhetorically. ‘And now I have, we all have, and it couldn’t be a better one. We shall make history. Think of that. Once we’ve got the vote, the world will never be the same again.’ It was a perfect, blissful moment, the cause so right and just, her friends thrilled and happy, beaming at her, her father so obviously proud of her. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell Mama.’ She was taut with excitement, twisting in her seat to talk to her friends behind her, turning back to look at her father, her hair tousled and her cheeks flushed.

‘Perhaps you had better leave me to break this to your mama,’ J-J said as he eased into the slatted seat beside her. ‘We don’t want to make her anxious.’

‘Why should she be anxious?’ Octavia said, amazed that he would even entertain such an idea. ‘She’ll be proud. As I am. How could she be anything else? Oh, Pa, my dear, dear Pa, this is the most wonderful moment of my life.’

Her father gazed at her rapturous face with affection and concern. ‘You must be prepared for heavy opposition, my
dear,’ he said. ‘It is not an easy road you have chosen.’

But Octavia was beyond warning. The future was full of hope; difficulties would be faced and overcome no matter how hard they might be; this great change was possible, necessary, inevitable. She was still talking as they delivered Betty and Gwen to their gate and still tremulous with excitement when they reached South Park Hill. It was a dark evening and the gaslights were globes of such very bright yellow that the windows below them gleamed with their reflected gold. To her dazzled eyes it all seemed just as it should be, richly coloured, bright and welcoming. How could it be anything else on such an evening? Then she reached the front path to her own house and saw that there were people in the parlour. She could see someone’s silhouette against the blinds.

‘We’ve got company,’ she said to her father. ‘I wonder who it is.’ And she led the way into the house, ready for warmth and welcome, eager to tell Mama her good news and to share it with their visitors.

The parlour was hot after the chill of the night air outside and prickling with excitement, as if they knew her news already. Mrs Wilkins, who was bending over the hearth to feed fresh coals to the fire, had cheeks as red as the coals, and their visitors were so excited she could hardly recognise them. Aunt Maud was sitting beside Mama, with her hair tumbling out of her bun like straw from a stack and giggling like a schoolgirl, and Emmeline was sitting in Pa’s armchair, which was unusual to say the least. There was something different about her, an air that Octavia couldn’t quite place, as though she were a queen receiving company – no, that wasn’t it – or the Cheshire cat in
Alice in Wonderland
– no, that wasn’t it
either. You couldn’t compare Em to a cat. Never mind, she thought, pushing the puzzle aside. Wait till she hears what I’ve done. She’ll be just thrilled.

‘Mama,’ she said, striding into the room. ‘It was the most amazing—’

But she didn’t get any further for Aunt Maud was interrupting her. Actually interrupting her. Whatever next? You
never
interrupted people. It was one of the ground rules of politeness. Pa said so. But it was being done, ground rules or no.

‘My dears,’ Aunt Maud said, beaming at them all. ‘Such wonderful news. Emmeline is engaged to be married.’

‘And I’ve just…’ Octavia struggled on. ‘We’ve just…’ But she was wasting her breath for Emmeline was on her feet and tripping towards her. Her news would have to be deferred. ‘How lovely,’ she said to her cousin. ‘When did this happen?’

‘This afternoon,’ Emmeline said happily. ‘He asked Papa before dinner. I wanted you to be the first to know. We’re going up to the West End on Saturday to choose the ring. He says it’s to be a ruby and diamond and I’m to choose the one I want. Oh, I’m so happy, Tavy, you wouldn’t believe.’ And she flung her arms round Octavia’s neck and hugged her tight.

‘Oh, I would,’ Octavia said, kissing her cousin’s hot cheek. ‘Dear Em, it’s what you’ve always wanted. I’m so glad.’ For a second it was on the tip of her tongue to ask which of Em’s many suitors she’d chosen, but she checked herself in time. Just as long as it wasn’t the bank manager one, Ernest Whoever-he-was. She stood back to look at her cousin’s rapturous face. ‘And guess what,’ she said. ‘You’ll never believe this. I’ve got what I wanted tonight too.’

Emmeline blinked with surprise. ‘Have you?’

Now her news could be told. ‘I’ve joined the WSPU,’ she said proudly. ‘I’m going to be a suffragette.’ And she smiled into her cousin’s face, expecting pleasure and approval. But Emmeline was pulling away, her expression changing.

‘Oh, Tavy!’ she said. ‘You can’t have.’

‘I have though,’ Octavia said, misunderstanding the changed expression and still beaming. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? You and me both. On the same day.’

‘But you can’t have,’ Emmeline insisted. ‘I mean, they’re dreadful people. They’re leading the country to rack and ruin.’

Her disapproval was like a slap in the face and so unexpected it stopped Octavia’s breath. ‘Oh, Em!’ she said. ‘How can you say such a silly thing? They’re not dreadful, they’re wonderful. I’ve just spent the evening with them, and I’ve never heard such sensible women in my life. You should have been there.’

Emmeline’s face was beginning to flush with distress but she stood her ground. ‘They’re dreadful,’ she said doggedly. ‘Ernest says so. They’re telling people to break the law.’

It would be Ernest, Octavia thought. I knew he was a fool. ‘If a law’s wrong it deserves to be broken,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows that. And this law’s as wrong as it can be. Why should a man have the vote and a woman be denied it, just because she’s a woman? You tell me that.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Emmeline told her. ‘But the law’s the law and if it’s the law you have to keep it.’

‘No you don’t,’ Octavia said, passionately. ‘That’s the whole point. If it’s a bad law, you have to change it.’

Aunt Maud was on her feet, smoothing her hair, hanging her handbag over her arm. ‘Time we were off, Emmeline,’ she
said, too brightly, and looked at her sister, her expression part appeal, part annoyance. ‘We only came over for a minute just to tell you.’

‘Of course,’ Amy soothed, touching her arm in a placatory way. ‘You can tell us everything else on Sunday when you come to tea. There’s so much I want to hear, Emmeline my dear. And by then you will have your ring, won’t you?’

Emmeline agreed that she would and tried to smile although her face was crinkling towards tears and she couldn’t look at Octavia. It was horrid of her to quarrel, she thought, and especially tonight. She took her mother’s proffered arm and made as good an exit as she could, her head held high and her spine stiff with distress and anger. Amy escorted them to the front door, gentling all the way, and J-J followed, tugging at his beard with embarrassment. It was a very difficult departure and left on her own in the overheated room Octavia felt guilty for it, as though she were an infant caught out in some childish transgression. But really she could hardly have stood silent and allowed her foolish cousin to say such abominable things. Not that it
was
Emmeline, of course. It was that pompous fiancé of hers. But whoever it was she had to speak up. She couldn’t allow such prejudice to go uncorrected. That would have been cowardice and this wasn’t a time for cowardice. It was a time for women to speak up. She could hear the voice of her heroine, ‘
You have joined a great crusade, Miss Smith
.’ What would she have thought if I’d stayed silent at my very first test? No, she thought. I did the right thing. The only thing. It might have upset Emmeline for the moment but she’ll thank me for it when she understands.